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Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: Energy
Twenty per cent my portfolio is in energy. In descending order of size of my holdings, they include Enbridge (ENF), Inter Pipeline (IPL), Pembina Pipeline (PPL), Suncor (SU), Veresen (VSN) and Superior Plus (SPB). The rest is in a handful of upstream and equipment services, all of which have accrued losses in a registered account - but much recovered since their lows.

With the recent surge in prices and my pessismitic view of the industry, I am thinking about bailing out of the everything except ENF, IPL and PPL, reducing my exposure to energy to about 12%.

Comments?
Read Answer Asked by Carl on December 02, 2016
Q: Hi 5i
I ask this question yesterday and you usually answer so quickly,I'm thinking it got lost
In shipping.
In My r.r.s.p. Account I can only use mutual funds unfortunately .so my question is ,
A fund that would benefit from a raising interest rates in the u.s.
and a drop the corporate tax ?
Of course this is the promise from mr. Trump
Thanks for all the help
Sam

Read Answer Asked by Sam on December 02, 2016
Q: Hi Peter and Team,

You recently said in an answer to another member "We would prefer that most investors have some exposure to all sectors and don't need to play these silly rotation games." I just want to express my gratitude for this valuable advice. Also, you always stress that we should look at our total portfolio, not just individual accounts when considering sector allocation. Well, it took me a long time, but I prepared a simple spreadsheet that looks at all our accounts, and the results have been very revealing. (We were grossly overweight in some sectors and grossly underweight in others). You get a far different picture looking at ALL accounts, so thanks for this sage advice as well!
Read Answer Asked by Jerry on December 01, 2016
Q: can you please comment on the psychology of people selling their winners like kinaxis, shopify, facebook, google , couche tard , even spinmaster rather than selling their losers to rotate into oil and gas stocks.
i just never have been able to understand that the investor cannot accept taking a loss so they keep their losers hoping to get back to even and sell their winners. dave
Read Answer Asked by david on December 01, 2016
Q: I recently read in the Q&A`s that ECI is offering a DRIP program with 5% discount on stock purchased via DRIP. I own a number of dividend paying stocks in both registered and non-registered accounts with my discount broker and wondered if there was a simple way to find out 1) if the companies offer a DRIP and 2) if there is any discount they offer through their DRIP purchases (is this common?)....does such a website exist? If you do not require the funds, it seems to be a `no brainer' to enroll in the DRIP and receive an immediate 5% return. Your comments are most welcome.

BTW, I an a new member and am very impressed with the quality of the information you provide. Thank You
Scott
Read Answer Asked by Scott on December 01, 2016
Q: Please help me understand the growing professional advice that we avoid 'defensive' dividend payers ( REITS, Utilities, Telcos etc).
I understand there might be downward pressure on share prices if investors switch to debt instruments. But we buy 'defensive' payers because they have sustainable, and usually
growing dividends...right? If there is downward pressure on the share prices we buy more.
What is it that I am not getting?
Read Answer Asked by Frank on December 01, 2016
Q: Hello 5i,
I an thinking about positionning my portfolio for long term growth and, as I respect your views considerably, I thought I may add GOOG and Qualcom, as well as JNJ, as you are quite positive on these stocks. (I checked them myself, of course, and what I am able to see confirms your ideas).

To do this, though, I am going to have to sell a few US stocks in which I have a pretty good profit. My question is whether you would see this as a good strategy, given that my sector allocations are OK?
The stocks that I would be thinking of selling are:
Finning-it is Canadian but I can get US dollars from it.
Goodyear tire and rubber
HPE:US hewlett packard
XHB:US a homeowners ETF that i have been holding for the rebuilding of housing in the US.
thanks
Read Answer Asked by joseph on December 01, 2016
Q: Not a question, but a suggestion for an enhancement to the 5i site. I was pleased when the forums were introduced, but I think they are more lightly used than I had expected. I was hoping that they would become an active focal point for the collective knowledge of the 5i community. I wonder if the following technical update could be considered, possibly just for those questions that pertain to a single company. Add a "go to forum" button next to the company name in the question, or if there is no existing forum, substitute a "create new forum" button. If a forum thread already exists, include the date of the most recent comment next to the button. I think this might encourage people, including me, to easily "toggle" back and forth between questions, which I read every day, and the forums, which I check much less often. Thanks for everything you do and the consistently level-headed advice that is of such benefit to us all.
Read Answer Asked by David on November 30, 2016
Q: I have positions in all 3 of the 5I Portfolios. Income(70%) Ballanced/Model (20%) and Growth (10%)portfolios. My Question is on the DRIP strategy and whether I should use it as part of my reinvestment or take the Dividends and utilize them as part of my annual Re-balancing Exercise. My outlook is on a long hold of 10-15 years, minus any sells you suggest on the portfolios themselves.

Also when publishing your Summary of Stocks Covered, I wonder if you can add which stocks offer a DRIP plan. Thanks again for your advice and knowledge. Ben
Read Answer Asked by Ben on November 30, 2016
Q: Now that there are 11 sectors in the Toronto TSX what would be your Sector allocations for a Conservative dividend and some growth oriented 45 year old investor.
Thank you.... Paul K.

I was wondering if you would advise the same weighting as you recently advised Paul K below* for a 63 old man's dividend growth portfolio in Canadian stocks. I would like to add that I like to avoid real estate related investment stock since I own rental properties and of course my home and therfore consider myself over weight in real estate. And what is your general perspective for investors with a lot of personnel real estate. Is this a good reason to avoid real estate related stocks. Thank you for your great service.
mike
*As a 'general' guideline:
Financials 15%, utilities 10%, telecom 10%, info tech 10%, materials 5%, energy 5%, real estate 5%, consumer staples 10%, consumer discretionary 15%, industrials 10%, health care 5%.
Read Answer Asked by Mike on November 30, 2016
Q: The Globe ran a piece on assessing 231 Canadian Corporate Boards of Directors according to 35 criteria. A number of 5i portfolio companies such as SJ, WPK, DHX, ENGH, CSU, KXS, ATD, and PBH were in the bottom ranked third of the list, do you have any comment about that assessment? The way the criteria are structured, it would be easier for larger companies to properly diversify their Boards and get a higher ranking, but I was quite surprised to see names like GWO, OCX and FFH quite close to the bottom. A glaring stat is that only 12% of Board members are women.
Read Answer Asked by Jeff on November 29, 2016
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